The artificial propping-up of the stock market still goes on, though “quantitative easing” is officially winding down.
Meanwhile, inflation in the food and energy sectors continues almost unchecked, if somewhat unevenly so far.
It will get much, much worse, once the US dollar has been effectively discarded as the primary means of settling international debts.
Gold, or possibly uncut diamonds, will be the unofficial currency. Other precious or semi-precious metals or gems may be included in that list, but there will be no set price for any commodity. “One pound of butter for one pound of gold.”
A painful lesson is about to be taught again.
Grass has some marginal dietary value. Grubs and slugs are also of some benefit against starvation.
Its an old saw that when transportation stocks are doing well then the internals of the economy are doing well. There are sections of the economy that are on fire. That would be the oil patch mainly. You just can’t have a down economy when a country is producing an extra million barrels a day annually.
As well the midsection of the country is enjoying high grain prices.
The hottest urban markets are san francisco to san jose which just churns out billion dollar companies at a pretty regular clip.
Now the rest of the country outside of the oil patch, the food patch and high tech is not doing so great. And obama’s regulations are killing any real chance of big growth. But as things stand there’s not much chance of the economy going down hard.